Dr. K was a sensation in the 1980's and had one of the greatest pitching seasons of all-time in 1985 (at 20 freaking years old). He had a high-'90's fastball and an intimidating curveball that opposing players called "Lord Charles".

Gooden was mediocre after 1991 due to arm and personal problems. He did have one moment of glory in 1996 with the Yankees, throwing an improbable 135 pitch no-hitter against the Mariners.

It's hard to find an athlete that squandered more talent than Doc Gooden. He's currently serving a jail sentence for probation violation. It's easy to forget how dominating he was back in the day.

Brimming with immense natural talent, shortstop Robin Yount was just eighteen years old when he was first called up to the Milwaukee Brewers in 1974, immediately becoming one of the youngest regulars in baseball history. Combining that head start with steady production in the face of injuries, hard-nosed intensity, and admirable team loyalty, Yount became a member of the elite 3,000-hit club eighteen seasons later, still with the Brewers.

Yount is one of three players (Hank Greenberg, Stan Musial) to win an MVP award at two different positions (shortstop and center field).

He was the 3rd overall pick in the 1973 draft, one selection ahead of another guy I picked in this draft, Dave Winfield.

John Hiller's a fantastic pick. Here's more info on him Very interesting story:

John Hiller's Amazing Comeback

John Hiller set a major league record with 38 saves in 1973, just two years after suffering a major heart attack.

After his stellar 1973 season, John Hiller won so many awards that he can't even count them all. The accolades included the Sporting News "Fireman of the Year," the "Comeback Player of the Year," the Hutch Award, and the Babe Didrikson Award. But the award that remains the most special to Hiller was the "Heart of the Year" Award from the American Heart Association, previously given to the likes of Presidents Eisenhower, Johnson, and Nixon. From 1972-1976, the recipients were Pearl Bailey, Nixon, Hiller, Henry Fonda, and astronaut "Deke" Slayton. That's heady company, and Hiller remains the only athlete to receive the award.

John Hiller was three months shy of his 28th birthday when he suffered a heart attack in January of 1971. The left-hander from Toronto had a decent career going with the Detroit Tigers, with a 23-19 record and 2.98 ERA in just over 400 innings. In 1967, he had pitched shutouts in his first two starts in the majors. Used mostly in relief with occasional starts, he tied an American League record in 1970 with seven straight strikeouts, and concluded that season on a high note with a two-hit shutout of the Indians.

Then his life caved in. "Why me?" he wondered, but he didn't have to look very far. Like a number of other pitchers who came up with the Tigers in the mid-60s - Mickey Lolich, Denny McLain, and Fred Gladding - he had considered conditioning optional, especially in the off-season. A heavy smoker, he had watched his weight balloon to 220 on a 6'1" frame. By the time he got out of the hospital, he weighed 145. He quit smoking, curtailed his drinking, and had an intestinal bypass to facilitate weight loss. Placed on the Voluntarily Retired list, he got a job selling furniture, began running, and gradually worked himself into shape. His eventual playing weight stayed around 165-175.

Despite getting "in the best shape of my life" by the end of 1971, Hiller's road back to the majors was a tough haul. The Tigers were leery of taking him back because a Detroit Lions player named Chuck Hughes had died that season of a heart attack. There was no precedent for a ballplayer coming back from a heart attack. The Tigers eventually agreed to take Hiller to spring training, but designated him a coach and left him in Florida when the 1972 season began. Nearly broke, stuck in Florida with his wife back home in Minnesota, he refused to give up, fighting for his baseball life with reluctant Tigers executives.

Finally his persistence wore them down, and he rejoined the Tigers in July. He pitched well, recording a 2.05 ERA in 25 games. His lone victory was an important one during the last weekend of the season with the division title on the line; he one-hit the Brewers through six innings and finished with a five-hitter, winning 5-1. His hard rehabilitation work had been validated, but the best was yet to come.

In 1973, Hiller put together one of the finest seasons ever by a relief pitcher. The major statistics give an idea of how superbly he pitched - he set a major-league record with 38 saves, pitched 125 1/3 innings in 65 appearances, struck out 124 while yielding only 89 hits, and had a 10-5 record with a sparkling 1.44 ERA. His performance deserves close examination, as it represents the workload faced by many top relievers of his generation. "

When the manager told you to pitch, you pitched," Hiller recalls. And his manager in 1973, Billy Martin, wanted him to pitch all the time. Hiller warmed up in 41 of the team's first 44 games, appearing in 17 of them. From May 16 through July 8, he pitched 22 times, logging 34 2/3 innings, and allowed just one run. Only three times all season did he allow more than one run in a game, and he blew just three saves. Of the 84 baserunners he inherited, only 12 scored. With runners in scoring position, opponents batted a paltry .131 against him.

Several years ago, the folks at Rolaids, who give out the annual award for relief pitchers, created what they call the "Tough Save". It answers critics who assert that there are too many "cheap" saves, such as when a reliever enters in the ninth inning with a three-run lead.

How many times did Hiller enter in that low-stress situation in 1973?

Zero.

For a "tough save," you have to face at least the tying run on base when you enter; starting the ninth inning with a one-run lead isn't tough enough by this definition. I have researched dozens of individual relief seasons, and nobody had a higher percentage of tough saves than Hiller did in 1973. Exactly half of his 38 saves qualified. Hiller believed that facing runners made him a better pitcher thanks to the rush of adrenalin and increased concentration. A closer look will show just how he responded to that pressure in 1973.

There you have John Hiller at his best, doing the job time and time again with no margin for error. By comparison, today's average closer faces such peril only two or three times a season. Look at it this way: from 2000-2003, only five teams had a higher four-year total of tough saves than Hiller's 19 in 1973, and the leading individual pitcher (Keith Foulke) had 15!

From 2000-2003, Mariano Rivera recorded a mere 13 tough saves out of 154; that's 8.4%, compared to Hiller's 50%. Have no doubts about the man's heart.

Today, most managers avoid making relievers pitch more than a couple of innings, fearful of giving the opposition a second look at any pitcher's stuff. Not so with Billy Martin managing John Hiller in 1973. Hiller faced at least 10 batters 19 times; in those games, he pitched 74 2/3 innings (that's right, averaging nearly four innings per outing) and yielded only 14 runs for a 1.69 ERA.

His most remarkable effort came on July 22 at Texas, when Martin brought him in with nobody out in the second inning, trailing 3-0. Hiller held the Rangers scoreless over the next eight innings, striking out 10. The Tigers tied the game and sent it into extra innings. In the 10th inning, Hiller allowed a single and a walk and was relieved with one out; the reliever allowed a game-winning hit that pinned a tough loss on our man. Two weeks later he pitched more than five innings against the Yankees before losing on a Horace Clarke home run in the 14th, this time bested by New York reliever Lindy McDaniel, who pitched 13 innings in relief. Those were the days!

Hiller kept up his good work in 1974, going 17-14 with a 2.64 ERA for a team that finished last. He was still going strong in 1978 with a 9-4 record and 2.35 ERA when he received what he regarded as his highest compliment in baseball. Ralph Houk, his manager since 1974, was retiring after the season, and in his final game he phoned the bullpen and asked Hiller to get warm. "I'd like to see you pitch one more time," Houk told his favorite pitcher. Hiller gave him what he wanted: a strikeout and a foul popup.

Hiller retired from pitching in 1980 with a lifetime 87-76 record and 2.84 ERA in 545 major league games. He is now enjoying retirement in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, participating in Tigers fantasy camps and wondering why today's pitchers aren't pushed to throw more innings. He looks back on his heart attack as a blessing. "It made me a better person and a better pitcher," he says.

Carlos Delgado finds himself on the Bench. Steroids or no steroids, Killericon selects Mark Mcguire.

McGwire was raised with his nine brothers in a middle-class masion neighborhood in Claremont, California. His first sports interest was golf. When he was five, he began caddying for his father John, who taught him how to grip the club. Not until three years later did McGwire take up baseball as well.

McGwire won a silver medal with the America's amateur baseball team in the 1984 Summer Olympics; that team was coached by Rod Dedeaux, who had also been his college coach at the University of Southern California. Mark began his pro-baseball career with the AA team of the Oakland A's, the Huntsville Stars, in Huntsville, Alabama.

McGwire began his career with the Oakland A's and played there until 1997, when he concluded his career with a few years with the St. Louis Cardinals. He won the World Series once, with the Oakland A's in 1989. Perhaps Mark McGwire's most famous home run with the A's was in Game 3 of the 1988 World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers. McGwire's game winning solo homer off of Jay Howell in the bottom of the 9th inning ultimately became the only game that the A's won in the 1988 World Series.

In his first full Major League Baseball season in 1987, he hit 49 home runs, a record for most home runs by a rookie, and was named the American League Rookie of the Year. McGwire hit 32, 33 and 39 homers the next three seasons, but his average, which hit .289 as a rookie, plummeted to .260, .231 and .235. Then in 1991, he bottomed out with a .201 average and 22 homers. Manager Tony LaRussa sat him out the last game of the season so his average could not dip below .200. McGwire had lost all confidence in his ability.

But with the help of a therapist, he regained his mental edge and with the aid of a weightlifting program, he became even stronger. He rebounded to hit 42 homers and bat .268 in 1992.

Injuries limited him to a total of 74 games in 1993 and 1994, and to 104 games in 1995 (but he still slugged 39 homers in 317 at-bats). The next season he belted a Major-League leading 52 homers in 423 at-bats.

McGwire worked hard on his defense at first base, and resisted being seen as a one-dimensional player. He was regarded as a good fielder in his Oakland days, but his increasing bulk and reduced speed made playing the position more difficult in St. Louis.

St. Louis Cardinals and HR record chase

In 1997, he hit a major league-leading 58 homers for the season, but did not lead either league in homers, as he was traded from the Oakland Athletics to the St. Louis Cardinals in midseason. It was widely believed that McGwire, in the last year of his contract, would play for the Cardinals only for the remainder of the season, then seek a long-term deal, possibly in Southern California where he lives. However, McGwire instantly fell in love with the Cardinal fans, and signed a long-term deal to stay in St. Louis instead. (It is also believed that McGwire encouraged Jim Edmonds, another Southern California resident who was traded to St. Louis, to sign his current contract with the Cardinals.)

In 1998, the year when McGwire and Sammy Sosa spent much of the season chasing the single-season home run record of Roger Maris, the two shared Sports Illustrated magazine's "Sportsmen of the Year" award. McGwire's assault on Maris's record did not come without controversy. After an article written by Associated Press writer Steve Wilstein[1], McGwire admitted to taking Androstenedione, a dietary supplement banned by the NFL and IOC. It should be noted that Androstenedione was an over-the-counter suppliment and was not a banned substance in baseball or the FDA at the time.

McGwire also had a sense of baseball history that is rare among modern players. He graciously involved the family of Roger Maris when he broke Maris' single season home run record on September 8, 1998. He finished the season with 70 homers, a record that has since been broken by Barry Bonds. (Appropriately, a section of Interstate 70 through St. Louis is named the Mark McGwire Highway.)

In 1999, McGwire drove in a league-leading 147 runs while only having 145 hits, the highest RBI-per-hit tally in baseball history.

McGwire ended his career with 583 home runs, which was then fifth-most in history. He led Major League Baseball in home runs five times. He hit 50 or more home runs four seasons in a row (1996-1999), leading Major League Baseball in homers all four seasons, and also shared the MLB lead in home runs in 1987, his rookie year, when he set the Major League record for home runs by a rookie with 49.

In 1999, the The Sporting News' released a list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players. The list had been compiled during the 1998 season, and included statistics through the 1997 season. McGwire was ranked at Number 91. That year, he was elected to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. In 2005, The Sporting News published an update of their list, and McGwire had been moved up to Number 84.

Many of McGwire's accomplishments, particularly his home run surge late in his career, have come into question with his connection to the steroid scandal plaguing Major League Baseball. In 2005, McGwire's former Oakland A's teammate Josť Canseco admitted to using anabolic steroids in a tell-all book, Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits & How Baseball Got Big. Canseco stated that he personally injected McGwire along with many other former teammates.

At a Congressional hearing on the subject of steroids in sports, McGwire repeatedly and somewhat conspicuously refused to answer questions on his own suspected use. For this reason, McGwire's almost-certain induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame is now cloudy.

Since he retired, McGwire has kept a low profile. His admission that he used the steroid androstenedione has led to speculation but no proof that he also took other steroids. Tony La Russa, the A's manager when McGwire and Canseco were on the team in the late 1980s and early 1990s, said he did not believe McGwire used steroids.

"It's fabrication," La Russa told 60 Minutes correspondent Mike Wallace. "The product of our good play and strength of our players — Mark was a great example — what we saw was a lot of hard work. And hard work will produce strength gains and size gains."

McGwire repeatedly denied using illegal performance-enhancing drugs in television interviews, but he declined to answer under oath when he appeared before the House Government Reform Committee on March 17, 2005. As McGwire said in a tearful opening statement, "Asking me or any other player to answer questions about who took steroids in front of television cameras will not solve the problem. If a player answers 'No,' he simply will not be believed; if he answers 'Yes,' he risks public scorn and endless government investigations." During the hearing, McGwire repeatedly responded to questions regarding his own steroid use with the line, "I'm not here to talk about the past." McGwire also stated, "My lawyers have advised me that I cannot answer these questions without jeopardizing my friends, my family, and myself." When asked if he was asserting his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself, McGwire once again responded: "I'm not here to talk about the past. I'm here to be positive about this subject."

Defenders of McGwire and other accused players point to the fact that steroids were not banned by baseball prior to 2003 thus they argue were not in violation of baseball's rules. Critics of McGwire maintain that even if steroids weren't banned prior to 2003, it's still cheating, even if no rules were violated.

The New York Daily News reported on August 5, 2006 that McGwire would not cooperate with former Senator George Mitchell's investigation into performance-enchancers in baseball.

McGwire becomes eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame in the election of January 2007.